-35publication, there would seem to be no reason in principle why liability should not accrue.” 88. Editorial control was given central importance by the Supreme Court of Canada in Crookes v Newton.73 The Court had to decide whether by creating a hyperlink that connects a reader to allegedly defamatory material, the creator of the hyperlink can be said to “publish” the offending material. A hyperlink is a device which can be imbedded in an internet article which, when clicked on, takes the reader to a secondary article to which the author wishes to refer. The Court held that providing a hyperlink did not amount to publication of the linked article. The majority emphasised that the author who created the hyperlink did not control the secondary article’s content or publication. 74 Abella J, writing for the majority stated: “A reference to other content is fundamentally different from other acts involved in publication. Referencing on its own does not involve exerting control over the content. Communicating something is very different from merely communicating that something exists or where it exists. The former involves dissemination of the content, and suggests control over both the content and whether the content will reach an audience at all, while the latter does not. Even where the goal of the person referring to a defamatory publication is to expand that publication’s audience, his or her participation is merely ancillary to that of the initial publisher: with or without the reference, the allegedly defamatory information has already been made available to the public by the initial publisher or publishers’ acts. These features of references distinguish them from acts in the publication process like creating or posting the defamatory publication, and from repetition.”75 K.4 89. Applied to the respondents When the abovementioned criteria are applied to the respondents, it is in my view clear that they are subordinate publishers and not first or main publishers of the defamatory postings. They were certainly publishers of those postings (and do not seek to argue otherwise) since they provided the platform 73 [2011] 3 SCR 269. 74 Abella J with Binnie, leBel, Charron, Rothstein and Cromwell JJ; with whom McLachlin CJ and Fish J substantially agreed. 75 [2011] 3 SCR 269 at §26 (Italics in the original).